A mother and daughter disagree

"Sometimes she [my daughter] tells me of the pain she felt in childhood because I was so often working and not to be distracted, or off on some mysterious pilgrimage, the importance of which, next to herself, she could not understand."

(from Anything We Love Can Be Saved by Alice Walker, p. 45--from a speech given in 1990).

"She was a part of and still is a part of the women's movement,'' Rebecca says, "and there is a sense that young women had been made dependent and kept dependent in many ways. She thought by allowing me this great, independent childhood that I would be more independent and stronger as an adult. I don't think she thought she was being neglectful. I think she thought this was a good, fine thing, to let me experience the world alone.''

(from an interview with Rebecca Walker, daughter of Alice Walker, in the Washington Post, 2001; available on her web site.)

-- Submitted by Beth Blevins